I don't know if playing secondaries seriously is an idea to be entertained right now, but you're welcome to work on anything you like and step in if NPC'ing is required. Anyone who expresses interest in a particular nation or national grouping of course gets first call on that. The British technically include a few minor african diasporas, South Africa, what was left of India, Australia/NZ + Canada, so try to include some aspects of that if you could, no need to go overboard though. I'm going to throw an in universe fluff piece here, let me know what you think - bear in mind its unchanged from a past revision, so dont overthink the nations mentioned other than those canon NPC's: [hider=OOC]Credit for image and some information to Dawn of Victory.[/hider] [b]-=Transportation and Communication in the Orion Region[/b] [i][url=http://i.imgur.com/eUC7vyQ.jpg]Civil Aviation is still a major industry[/url][/i]. -- The Orion Region, is, despite any tensions between respective powers, a place of commerce in many forms. It is common to see inhabited systems hosts to dozens of small transports, medium freighters and super-tankers plying their wares and travelling between far flung locations in the pursuit of profit. Indeed, the bulk of transportation in the civil economy is the simple hauling of goods, followed by transportation of individuals for varying reasons ranging from business, to politics, to simply holidays. Most civil aviation authorities are well respected and trace their routes to government owned state airlines or those that had a hand in the exodus. Similar freight companies also continue their tasks in the current age. While a sizeable portion of civilian industrial traffic and civil aviation lacks FTL drives in the core systems, many possess them and it is not uncommon to see even state industry aligned Soviet freighters delivering refined materials even as far a field as the Andean Alliance or Albion, as the allure of finance has few boundaries. While hub systems - those of considerable wealth or at the nexus of multiple node links - are the most common locations to view such traffic, and neutral systems that serve many node links such as in the Geneva Confederation will see hundreds of vessels per day, and thousands per week. It is, indeed, not uncommon to find even military vessels from multiple nations in such hub systems, though their conduct is expected to be in line with the Sol Doctrine, like most civilian traffic. With such Civilian traffic and financial assets tied up in a massive transportation industry, piracy, particularly in outer systems or troubled ones is common, something that lead to the rise of the well known Free Traders Union. One of the most common vessel types away from the hub systems and bulk industrial movement are civilian liners and information couriers. While most "hub" systems and the core developed worlds of the various regional powers are served by multiple communication links, it is often uneconomical or impractical to link outer colonies or resourcing operations into respective communications networks. These couriers move priority data - that is, data that cannot be simply transmitted homeward over the course of months - and reduce such delay to hours, days, or in the case of some outer colonies, weeks. However, for central systems, as mentioned, various states have their methods of instantaneous communication with priority military assets and the developed worlds. The Soviet Union, for example, employs command ships outfitted with quantum entanglement tied to their High Command for military operations, whilst also maintaining a network similar to the "internet" found in for example, the DF, that serves most hub worlds in the Soviet Union. Named the UniSphere, it has its roots in the advent of military networks in the Soviet Union, when a research team led by Michail Isravov found a way to instantly connect all the Army HQ's within the union. With the so called information hubs, documents could be send instantly from one place to another. As time progressed the information hubs became smaller and eventually merged with the computer, this required a new more portable, fast and reliable connecting system that would be used by everyone, not just the military - with the american dominance of the early internet not tolerable to the Soviet Union - though eventually they tied their own network into it on Earth - the UniSphere was born. Soviet law demanded that every computer was connected to the UniSphere by default. It was implemented in the first space ships to travel long distances, although a message from Mars would take 20 minutes to reach Earth it was the fastest way to exchange information. As distances increased, delays became a problem, it took up to a month for a message from the Chinese border to reach the capital system of Leningrad. In 2190 a young and promising physicist, Vladimir Borisov suggested that small quantum entanglement devices should be utilized in communications hubs and tied in with a ansible network throughout important worlds in the Soviet systems - though expensive and requiring significant innovation, the Soviet Communication Hubs became an essential element of internal communication. The UniSphere has a web like structure with each Communication Center (Relay Stations) having their own sphere of interconnected computers and personal data systems, each of which could be accessed by the KGB in time of need, with all data screened by an automatic system. The UniSphere is governed by the Ministry of Communications and the KGB, each of the two governing bodes has equal rights over the UniSphere and has the authority to shut it down completely or isolate specific systems from the network. There have been instances in which whole systems have been isolated from the network, for example during the Andropov Rebellion the Khabarovsk system was shut off from the Sphere, causing a total communication black out, although the White army manged to create an interconnected web within the system they were effectively separated from the USSR proper. Like most other communications networks, the UniSphere offers most luxuries of a planetary network on a sector wide basis as is best possibly delivered through its limited capacities, though bandwith has become less of an issue as technology has progressed. The UniSphere has largely become an administrative and civilian network - with the military utilizing specific portions of the UniSphere that are reserved for its own data alongside seperate, local networks for military operations. Although serving purely as an example of a communications network, the UniSphere is one of the major communication backbones in the western Orion Region. [b]-=Sol Doctrine[/b] The Sol Doctrine is a small document describing in general terms the duties and obligations of every state in regards to what is labelled the Sol Sector, that is, Sol itself, - though Sol is subject to seperate UN regulation as of the neutering of the Gaia presence - and the surrounding independent systems including Vega, Vesta and Juno, as well as the states of The Federative Republic of Rigel Kentaurus, The United Centauri Protectorates, The Tau Ceti Confederation and the Republic of Israel. Many of the conditions of the Sol Doctrine are also applied to Outreach, though it falls outside of the Sol Sector. In the case of the Republic of Israel, certain exclusions apply. While this document set the basis for numerous elements of transit, trade policy and governed the conditions of independence granted to The United Centauri Protectorates and Rigel Kentaurus - and later applied to Tau Ceti, it has also come to serve as a basic law applied to all Orion States in regards to the free movement of goods and people. The Sol Doctrine essentially forbids any state in the Orion Region from interfering or otherwise blockading the movement of civilian vessels throughout the Sol Sector - something that has come to apply to the Orion Region as a whole. As such, states have a certain obligation to not interfere beyond customs and security checks with the movement of people and goods in the Orion Arm. The Sol Doctrine further makes it clear that the movement of military vessels throughout the Sector is permitted, though the state whose territory it travels through must limit the number of vessels permitted transit at any one time. In the case of the Republic of Israel, there is no such condition enforced. The Sol Doctrine also made clear that the independent states that arose out of multiple programmes, such as The New Weimar Republic and The Confederation of Tau Ceti were legitimate governments with the same rights as any other state established by any human power. The Sol Doctrine also enforced a guarantee of their independence from every member of the United Nations, though recent political machinations such as the entry of Tau Ceti into the October Pact has raised a number of concerns. In essence, the Sol Doctrine simply forms an element of civil policy in regards to transit through the central locations of the Orion Region, while also providing a basic guarantee to trading vessels throughout the region as a whole. The Sol Doctrine has been put to the UN Assembly Floor for renegotiation or reform at least four times by separate blocs of nations, but any amendments have been vetoed once by the Democratic Federation, twice by the Soviet Union and once by the Commonwealth of Nations. ----- TLDR: Core worlds have fast communication and theres a measure of ~quantum entanglement~ (taking liberties) to make FTL communications happen between important places, but most comms are still bound by slow travel, couriers or high expense relays.